


The Ice Cream Man

by chucks_prophet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bisexual Dean, Bisexual Male Character, Chef Dean, Cute Castiel, Dinner, First Dates, First Kiss, Fluff and Humor, Ice Cream, Implied Sexual Content, Lots. Of. Ice. Cream., M/M, Single Parent Dean, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 05:19:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4693538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chucks_prophet/pseuds/chucks_prophet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The ice cream man, formerly known as Castiel until Dean decided that was a mouthful, gave Dean a reassuring laugh, deep and sincere. “I’m good, Dean. What will it be, the usual?”</p>
<p>“The usual,” Dean confirmed, repaying him with his famous crooked smile before retrieving the currency of the realm from his back pocket. If Lisa found out her son was having ice cream for breakfast every weekend, he’d be lucky to see Ben on school holidays.</p>
<p>She’d be even more incensed to find out it was because he had a crush on the ice cream man.</p>
<p>Or the one where Dean is smitten with Castiel, the ice cream man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ice Cream Man

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what came over me other than 'OMG ICE CREAM MAN!CAS!'

Dean never understood why the ice cream man had a bad rap.

Sure the colossal speakers on his short, stocky truck rattled the windows of passing houses, but so did the owner of a decrepit four-door who had more than just his chains hanging low. Then there was the whole issue on whether or not the truck is FDA-approved—which is, Dean will admit being the father of a venturesome six-year-old, a respectable opinion. Only, there are foods on the market that aren’t 100% safe to consume because the so-called “FDA” doesn’t regulate everything with little red stamps and a life-back guarantee.

Then the issue of morality arose among dessert dealers. Suddenly ice cream trucks became the symbol for pedophilia across the nation, leaving little Johnny no choice but to wait for the next grocery run to get his sugar tooth sated.

Dean never adopted this ideology. He’s not dismissing the fact that there are immoral people out there—coming from someone who grew up motherless _and_ fatherless, he’s seen immoral. However, he is saying that the ice cream man should not be someone to be chary of, regardless of what that spiffy anchorman on channel eleven may say. (He’s also very attractive, so Dean can see the appeal.) If he brings joy into Ben’s heart, even if it is fleeting, than the ice cream man was a friend of Dean’s.

Currently, the father and son duo were outside in the dead of summer, waiting on, you guessed it, the ice cream man. (Or as Ben likes to call him, the “good food guy” because child logic stated that anything that wasn’t loaded down with high fructose corn syrup wasn’t good food.) Luckily, Dean’s house was parked on the end of a cul-de-sac, so it didn’t take long for the truck to round the corner.

Ben’s tiny fingers latched onto one of the many holes in Dean’s blue jeans with a death-grip akin to his mother’s during labor, forcibly pulling him toward the array of frozen flavors. (Not like Dean had to be dragged in by the skin of his teeth. Just because he was an adult didn’t mean he had to give up his love for iced foods.)

The man behind the counter wore his usual ready-to-serve smile. “What will it be, kiddo?”

Twisting his face in deep scrutiny, Ben raked over the menu until he found something that nearly made his eyes pop out of his skull. “An ice cream sammich with _sprinkles_?!”

“Not just any sprinkles, kiddo,” he said, smile growing wider. “Rainbow star sprinkles.”

Ben’s mouth formed an ‘O’ wide enough to catch flies. “Gimme that!”

“ _Ben.”_

“ _Please_ gimme that,” he corrected. Dean hung his head, mortified. The guy was probably used to unsupervised kids swarming around his van, demanding they give them a chocolate swirl with _extra_ swirl “or else”, but Dean doesn’t raise his only kid (meaning if he screwed up once, that was the end of his parenting career) to be a barbarian.

“How are you, Cas?”

The ice cream man, formerly known as Castiel until Dean decided that was a mouthful, gave Dean a reassuring laugh, deep and sincere. “I’m good, Dean. What will it be, the usual?”

“The usual,” Dean confirmed, repaying him with his famous crooked smile before retrieving the currency of the realm from his back pocket. If Lisa found out her son was having ice cream for breakfast every weekend, he’d be lucky to see Ben on school holidays.

She’d be even more incensed to find out it was because he had a crush on the ice cream man.

Cas popped his head through the side window a minute later with their frozen delights. Dean handed Ben his “ice-cream sammich with _sprinkles_?!” before digging into his cherry Screwball. He laughed at his choice dessert. “Something funny?”

Dean curtailed his thoughts with a very manly throat clearing. “No, uh, it’s nothing.” Seeing as his house was Cas’s last stop until the afternoon rolled around, he decided to tie his balls. “So, Cas…”

“So, Dean.”

“Would you maybe wanna, I dunno… go out sometime?” Smooth. Sam would snort if he were here.

Cas bit his lip. Dean envied those front teeth. “Uh…”

“You don’t have to,” he blurted, all gears cranking into overdrive like his prized ’67 Chevy Impala. “You know only if you want to. Whatever you’re comfortable with. I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable. Or obligated. Working is an obligation, you know, you clock in, you do some stuff and you go home. Working is important. I admire someone with a good work ethic.”

Only when Cas laughed did Dean realize he’d been waiting with bated breath, “Okay.”

“Sorry, what was that? I couldn’t hear you over the sound of my internal screaming.”

“Okay, sure, alright, yes, absolutely,” he rattled off the variations like an auctioneer at a senior center. Then that big, gummy smile unveiled along with those baby blues that wiggled his way into his heart with a paycheck’s worth of Screwballs and an ear-worming jingle. “It’s a date.”

***

“Don’t look now, but that’s my boss and he totally ships us.”

Cas swallowed his gumbo with an involuntary gag, “Your boss? You work here?”

“More or less,” replied Dean, eyeing his chicken burger morosely. He didn’t mean to cast aspersions on his coworkers; the meat just isn’t the same as when he’s the one manning the grill. Cajun is his specialty. “I’d like it to be less. My best friend Benny is a real pain in my ass—”

“I heard that!”

“—but in all honesty, it’s great,” he rambled on with a curt laugh. “I love the idea of making something from scratch that can make people _feel,_ you know?” Cas nodded, bringing his napkin to his face. Honestly, Dean didn’t even have to eat. He could just watch Cas the entire night.

“I do. I love bringing a smile to children’s faces.” He too had a smile on his face as he was telling this. “I work in the daycare center at the community college on the weekdays. My goal is to save enough from that job and whatever doesn’t go toward gas and insurance from the truck to transfer to Kansas State for a Bachelor’s in Early Childhood Education.”

Dean nodded, mirroring his smile. “Any subject in particular?”

“I’ve always been fond of science,” he commented, “but I’ll take what I can get.”

“Hey, maybe one day you’ll be teaching one of my kids.”

“How about that,” he said, cheeks tinting a shade of pink that couldn’t have been from the gumbo. Cas plopped a jumbo shrimp in his mouth before asking, “So you intend on having more?”

Dean absently thumbed at the pepper coating on his half-eaten bun. “You know, I don’t know. Maybe. I just don’t wanna screw it up again, you know?”

“No, actually, I don’t.” Cas looked genuinely confused. Dean chuckled wryly.

“So you see a single dad and don’t wonder what went wrong?”

“I fail to see how that’s any of my concern. Honestly, I just thought you were hot. You have that whole D.I.L.F. complex going on.” Cas blanched immediately after the words escaped his mouth. “Plus, you seem great with your kid. He always has a smile on his face when I see him.”

“That’s because he likes _you.”_

“No, he likes what I have to offer.”

It was Dean’s turn to blush. “He’s not the only one.”

Cas’s face twisted into a plaintive expression. “What happened?”

Benny must have heard Dean’s distress signal a few tables away because Elizabeth was at to their table, refilling their drinks. She left to attend to a few disgruntled patrons, but kept a close eye on her coworker. “She, uh, left when Ben was turning two.” Cas reached across the table, interweaving their hands together. His fingers were cool. Dean felt undeserving.

“I’m sorry, Dean,” he said, deep and sincere.

Dean shrugged, shaking his head. “It’s not your fault. I was the one who cheated on her.”

Cas didn’t say anything. If he was surprised, he was a master of disguise. Instead, he gripped his hand tighter and leaned in close to whisper, “Let’s get out of here.”

***

Dean found himself on the floor of Castiel’s truck, digging into huge, laughable tubs of ice cream. Cas’s reasoning was that his father was an insurance adjuster, which was a doctor on a legal level, which meant that when he told his son ice cream was the cure-all for heartaches, it was from an expert standpoint. Dean couldn’t disagree with that logic. Anything sounded good with limited-edition raspberry ripple setting off a trillion firework tastebuds in his mouth.

“So how did she take it?”

Dean shoved another spoonful into his mouth; looking up at Cas through creamy eyelashes. (Ice cream was messy, alright?) “You mean when she found me in bed with a dude?”

“Oh.”

“Like that,” he replied matter-of-factly. Cas ducked his head.

“Sorry, I’m nosey by nature,” he explained. “It’s probably why I fit in with kids so well.”

Dean shook his own head. “It’s alright. I’m always talking to Ben anyway. It’s nice to have a conversation that doesn’t involve Power Rangers and Sweettart Pancakes.”

“ _Sweettart Pancakes?”_ Cas inquired dubiously.

“It’s the craze this week,” Dean replied. He’d be blushing if his body temperature wasn’t stabilized. “I’m surprised the kid sleeps through the night. Not complaining, but surprised.”

A slow smile stretched across the other man’s face. “Well he’s lucky to have a dad like you.”

“Yeah,” Dean scoffed, wiping his sticky mouth with the back of his hand. “I’d be six feet in the ground if his mom found out I’m loading him down with sugar. I just don’t wanna deny him anything, you know? He’s a good kid. Smart, too. What if I’ll be known as the father of the next Einstein who refused his son Sweettart Pancakes? That’s cruel, and—and I’m rambling again.”

Cas chuckled, “Don’t worry, you’re still cute.”

“So, Cas,” he started, boxing him in with his long bowlegs. Cas leaned into him, smirking.

“So, Dean.”

Dean leaned in the rest of the way, capturing his lips. He tasted like gumbo and Diet Pepsi and rainbow star sprinkles and Dean couldn’t help smiling into the kiss. Dean held onto Cas’s legs like the handlebars on a rollercoaster ride as Cas’s hand came to rest on his cheek, pulling him impossibly closer. His tongue itched free a moment later, swiping across the corner of his mouth. Dean pulled back, staring at him through lust-blown emerald eyes.

“You had a little, uh—” Dean shut him up with an open-mouth kiss to his lower lip.

“You too.”

It went without saying that that night didn’t do any favors for the ice cream man’s reputation.


End file.
